This invention relates to portable shelters of the type commonly referred to as tents and deals more particularly with a frame for such a shelter composed of a number of parts connected with one another and with an actuating mechanism so as to allow the frame to be either collapsed into a compact condition for convenience of storage or transportation or to be erected into one or more deployed conditions for service in supporting a fabric or other sheet-like wall member to provide a shelter.
A well known form of tent consists of a frame which rests on the ground and supports a thin flexible wall member to envelope and cover the space generally defined by the frame. Commonly, the frames for such tents are made of a number of separable parts, often tubular, which are disassembled from one another when the tent is not in use and which are reassembled, often by telescopic slip fit joints, to define the complete frame when the tent is again erected. Thus, there are problems of possible loss of frame parts while the tent is not in use and in properly and speedily reconnecting the parts to one another during subsequent reassembly.
In tent frames of the above-mentioned type it is also known to permanently connect some of the parts of the frame to one another and to make them collapsible, but generally such frames still include some parts designed to be completely disassembled from others when the frame is collapsed, and the collapsing procedure and mechanism are usually difficult and complicated. Also, prior tent frames have generally had only one deployed condition to provide only one form of structure and have not been adapted to provide any alternate form of structure.
A general object of this invention is, therefore, to provide an improved collapsible tent frame which is easily manually shifted between a compact collapsed condition and a deployed condition in which deployed condition it is useful in supporting a fabric or other wall-defining sheet of material to provide a structure.
A further object of the invention is to provide a collapsible tent frame in which all parts of the frame are permanently connected with one another so as not to be subject to loss during storage or transportation of the frame and so as not to require any reassembly when the frame is erected from a collapsed condition.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a tent frame of the foregoing character having two different deployed forms so as to be serviceable in providing two different types or shapes of shelter, the shelters provided by the frame being adaptable to a wide variety of uses such as a mountain camp tent, a roadside overnight sleeping tent, a beach parasol, a back yard screened porch, a farmer's field house, a battlefield command post, etc.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment and the accompanying drawings.